Silent Treatment

Recently, I hooked up with Yahoo!^®'s online radio service, LAUNCHcast. Michelle found Yahoo!^® radio 2 years ago and claims that her personal station is the coolest around, but that's just because she hasn't heard mine.

It's not just an online radio station, it's a personalized and customized station.

The listener suggests some artists whose music he likes. LAUNCHcast starts with that and then suggests music by similar artists to add to the station. The listener rates the new music, from Don't Play it Again through to Can't Get Enough, and more music suggestions follow. The more ratings you provide, the sharper the tuning of the playlist. What you end up with is continuous streaming of music that you like.

Today, in protest of changing royalty rates, online radio stations are off the air. According to the Savenetradio Coalition "the future of Internet radio is in immediate danger."

The Copyright Royalty Board decided to increase the royalty fees paid by radio webcasters between 300 and 1200 per cent and make the increases retroactive to January 2006. (MSN Music, June 2007)

Web radio offers promotion to the artists, the same as land-radio. Online listeners are more loyal to their artists and the personalization feature of web radio generates tight market targets. Why wouldn't you want that?

In the U.S., terrestrial radio doesn't currently pay the artist for a spin. Webcasters have been paying 7/100^ths in digital performance royalties for their spins. We want that.
I absolutely believe that artists deserve to be paid for their work. That's why I pay for music instead of downloading it from a P2P site. Webcasters are paying royalties that land radio is not. It's pretty unclear to me the justification of an increase of 300%- 1200%.

Today, I'm craving radio.

"Do you believe in Rock and Roll?
Can music save your mortal soul?" - Don McLean, American Pie (1971)



Read RAIN for a better explanation of the changes and their impact on webcasting.


[Savenetradio] [Don McLean]
[LAUNCHcast] [Radio and Internet Newsletter]